Happy family

Find a legal form in minutes

Browse US Legal Forms’ largest database of 85k state and industry-specific legal forms.

State Regulations

A state shall control the operation of motor vehicles upon a public highway under its police power.  A state shall regulate its public highways and impose reasonable regulations for securing the safety of the travelers using those highways.  A state may prescribe the form of all commercial contracts, as well as the terms and conditions upon which the internal trade of the state may be carried on.

The authority of the state to fix tolls for the use of wharves, piers, elevators, and improved channels of navigation is always limited to such as is exclusively within the territory of a single state, thus affecting interstate commerce but incidentally, and cannot be extended to structures connecting two states without involving a liability of controversies of a serious nature[i].

A state’s power to regulate the use of its highways extends to their use by nonresidents as well as by residents.  In relation to the operation of a motor vehicle by a nonresident on a respective state’s highways, that respective state may require him/her to take out a license and to appoint one of its officials as his agent, on whom process may be served in suits growing out of accidents in such operation.  This is a valid exercise of power by a state because of its right to regulate the use of its highways by nonresidents and to declare without exacting a license that the use of the highway by a nonresident may by statute be treated as the equivalent of the appointment by him of a state official as an agent on whom process in such a case may be served[ii].

Statutory regulation of the vehicle speed on highways is reasonable and proper for the promotion of the safety of the public.  Under its authority to regulate the use of streets in, a city may enact ordinances which may diminish the danger of indifferent, careless, or incompetent operators of motor vehicles that are a danger to the travelling public’s safety. For this purpose, a city may regulate the speed of automobiles and control careless driving[iii].

In the exercise of its power to regulate and control the public highways, a state legislature shall prohibit the use on the highways of such vehicles which are dangerous to the general traveling public.  The legislature cannot prevent citizens from using the public highways in an ordinary manner.  A state motor vehicle law may not apply to motor vehicle traffic on private property.

In the absence of national legislation particularly covering the subject of interstate commerce, the state may rightly prescribe uniform regulations adapted to promote safety upon its highways and the conservation of their use, applicable alike to vehicles moving in interstate commerce and those of its own citizens[iv].

The Motor Vehicle Safety Act pre-empts state standards relating to the same subject that are either more or less stringent than the federal standards.  However, only state statutes that conflict with federal safety standards are pre-empted. Although a state may be pre-empted from establishing its own standards, it is not pre-empted from enforcing the federal standards.

State laws that require proof of compliance with federal standards before automobiles not originally designed for the U.S. market shall be licensed and registered and are not pre-empted by the federal regulations.  The United Nations Convention on Road Traffic is part of federal law and the provisions of the Convention supersede any contrary state law.

[i] Covington & Cincinnati Bridge Co. v. Kentucky, 154 U.S. 204 (U.S. 1894).

[ii] Wuchter v. Pizzutti, 276 U.S. 13 (U.S. 1928).

[iii] Chicago Motor Coach Co. v. Chicago, 337 Ill. 200, 206 (Ill. 1929).

[iv] Morris v. Duby, 274 U.S. 135 (U.S. 1927).


Inside State Regulations